Warren Brown’s D&AD Diary
Warren Brown, creative founder of BMF, is jury foreman of the D&AD Radio jury and writes exclusively for Campaign Brief.
It seems fitting that we’re judging this year’s D&AD at Kensington Olympia in the year of the London Olympics. D&AD’s 50th anniversary is a special event and the venue is impressive by anyone’s standards.
At the jury foreman’s briefing in one of the inflatable rooms with the glamorous president Rosie Arnold and the cool as they come CEO Tim Lindsay I got to meet he guy who actually started it all those years ago, Bob Gill (below left).
Having tortured myself throughout my 30 years in the business trying to win the almost impossible to get award he created, I didn’t know if I felt like hugging him or punching him but you have to love what he’s done for our industry in creating D&AD.
I’ll bet the the briefing wasn’t too much different in 1962, D&AD has always prided itself on being the most difficult gong to win. I’m sure the judges don’t take any sadistic pleasure in making it tough but over the years the juries have had the responsibility of keeping the creative crown jewels firmly in place and this year wasn’t going to be any different.
Lucky for me we got to prejudge the 340 odd radio entries a few weeks before so we were all pretty fresh coming to the pointy end. Our shortlist had about 35 spots left from the cull but this is D&AD so we still had plenty of work to do. I’d have to say virtually every entry got a fair hearing and as usual the best work only got stronger through discussion while the weaker stuff withered and died leaving us only 16 gems.
Picking over what was left and deciding what was worthy of a Nomination took another couple of hours. It was an honour being part of a hugely talented panel and not surprisingly only the best work unified us as a group.
From the 16 remaining entries we had eight Nominations and from there the winners you could say more or less picked themselves, as they were outstanding pieces of work whichever way you looked or I should say listened to them.
Job done and I hope on the night we make Bob Gill proud.